Video card bad flash
polycounter lvl 9
hey guys, i have an ati radeon 4870 x2 2g gddr5 pci.saphire brand. and after using it a lot i started to see a lot of lag in games that didn't have lag. So the first thing i didn was open my computer and make sure everything was connected properly. Then in my overdrive i could see that in idle the card would heat to 82-85 and it's too hot. so i thought i should do a lot of clean up and really remove all the dust. So i cleaned everything. I opened my video card and cleaned up the heat sinks that were covered in walls of filthy grime. Put it back together and bam... in idle dropped down to 60 right away and could run any game that i used to without a problem.
Now, here is the issue. After some looking around and some research people suggested flashing the video card to get better performance out of it. I hesitated, but i did it using winflash and the bios that they posted. The result didn't give me any error that i could see or understand and then it prompted me to restart. I did and my computer since then wouldn't start.
I did some research and all places said i needed a back up disc, which i didn't make. To reset your cmos, which i have tried, or to have another video card.
I have another video card, an nvidia geForce 6600 gt. my computer restarted perfectly but i didn't hook up my old 4870. so i turned it off. hooked it up to the power supply and when booted it would not run. in the mother board code, i get a C1 i think. Which i looked around and it has something to do with the ram? i have good ram... and i made sure that they were hooked up properly. so i disconnected the 4870 and the computer would not start, still the c1. i had to take out the battery from the motherboard to reset the cmos, if i don't have my 4870 video card in tje pc starts normal again.
Soooo... did i fry my video card? why won't it boot up having another video card? my initial guesses are, power supply can't handle 2 video cards. or my card is deaded. So i really on this one have no idea how to get my video card back. Some people in other forums i looked just say to reflash it, but if i can't get my video card to boot up then i am at a loss. Any thoughts on this guys? any input or solutions would be great.
Sorry for the longest story on what happened, but i guess the more you know the better you guys can help out.
I am not sure about the voltage of my power supply... i should look that up. Thanks!
Now, here is the issue. After some looking around and some research people suggested flashing the video card to get better performance out of it. I hesitated, but i did it using winflash and the bios that they posted. The result didn't give me any error that i could see or understand and then it prompted me to restart. I did and my computer since then wouldn't start.
I did some research and all places said i needed a back up disc, which i didn't make. To reset your cmos, which i have tried, or to have another video card.
I have another video card, an nvidia geForce 6600 gt. my computer restarted perfectly but i didn't hook up my old 4870. so i turned it off. hooked it up to the power supply and when booted it would not run. in the mother board code, i get a C1 i think. Which i looked around and it has something to do with the ram? i have good ram... and i made sure that they were hooked up properly. so i disconnected the 4870 and the computer would not start, still the c1. i had to take out the battery from the motherboard to reset the cmos, if i don't have my 4870 video card in tje pc starts normal again.
Soooo... did i fry my video card? why won't it boot up having another video card? my initial guesses are, power supply can't handle 2 video cards. or my card is deaded. So i really on this one have no idea how to get my video card back. Some people in other forums i looked just say to reflash it, but if i can't get my video card to boot up then i am at a loss. Any thoughts on this guys? any input or solutions would be great.
Sorry for the longest story on what happened, but i guess the more you know the better you guys can help out.
I am not sure about the voltage of my power supply... i should look that up. Thanks!
Replies
General breakdown...
1. make a boot cd
2. copy flash utility + bios to disk
3. create an autoexec.bat with the bio flash command line
4. boot to floppy (in this case CD/DVD)
5. Wait 5-6 minutes, reboot PC.
It's possible the card manufacturer has an easy flash setup to create the boot cd, i would check their website first or contact tech support.
An alternative is a bootable USB stick:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/34/5
Here's the tools to use for DOS flashing:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/34/8
There's only 2 ROMs available for the 4870 x2 (called slave if you have only one card)
EDIT: nvm... you wrote before that they can be done with either.
C1 seems to be memory related...possibly fried video ram or conflict?
http://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmviewfaq.aspx?faqid=58554
Can you see anything at the boot sequence when the 4870 is in the comp, or did the flash knock that out too? Cause you will need to see the prompt to write the commands, if not, you'll have to create an autoexec to do it for you...and hope it works.
I would first create the boot CD and test it with the nvidia (dont flash it! lol), see if you can get it to boot and poke around. If that works, then you should be good to go, i would create some batch files with command line parameters in case there's no display available.
i can still see the motherboard code feedback... i am a little nervous to do this haha i'll do some extra research and reading. make sure that i don't screw it up this time.
amm.. i am reading about this and giving this a shot. any other hints or suggestions before i take on to this endeavor? Ok, i am just reading about this, and there is no easy way to make a boot cd for windows vista. I guess i didn't mention this. i am running windows vista ultimate. I do have my installation of windows vista.
i think the easier way would be to make a boot from a usb drive... i'll check on to that. any thoughts?
this sound right for a bootcd for windows vista?
Edit: Nevermind I see you already tried that. Could've burnt a component out.
most of the time they flash the cart for free
and have a half page to moan about (you should not mention that you flashed your card wrong thou)
other option is store or maintainance shit
and as tip: dont flash your video card !
Any magazine in particular? they really will flash the card for free?
i hear ya on that one... i actually hesitated on flashing the video card... but reading on performance optimization sounded really good. Now i know better.
the reason i ask is because if i do get them to load at the same time then i can use something like this http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/ to get the right bios without worrying on getting it wrong... but i also know that reseting the motherboard like that a lot is not good.
someone mentioned that they solved something similar like this by reinstalling windows. would reinstalling all of vista help with this? <--- this might be a stupid question, since the video card is not linked at all at how the video card works or is supposed to work.
EDIT and UPDATE: another IT friend from here at work told me this
friend: the 4870x2 is a dual gpu card, so the motherboard will need to be one that supports having more than 2 gpus, as you'll need a 3rd to get anything done.
assuming you can get some machine to boot into windows with the radeon card plugged in and powered, you will likely be able to reflash it's bios to a working state.
me: so it's safe to say that i can't run more than 2 gpu's? cuz i added the nvidia card but i got nothing, and even when i got the radeon card out, it wouldn't boot until i reset the motherboard... it's been running fine since then... just not with the other video card plugged in
friend: as for the radeon being always selected as the primary card. Unless your bios allows you to set a specific slot to be the primary gpu, the card that responds to a PCI poll first will always be primary, so it makes sense that the radeon is primary no matter what slot you put it in.
me: would that have changed the primary since i used the other video card and installed it properly?
friend: the primary will only change if you change the hardware (as in add or remove a gpu) or manually force it in the bios. Otherwise the primary will not change. And by primary I mean which card is primary, not which slot.
any slot can be the primary card with PCIe, despite whatever the motherboard may say. Sometimes they print "primary" "secondary" on the board itself. That is meaningless.
me: ok.. then it would make sense that i can't load both video cards.... if i set the nvidia in and set it to be primary in the bios then it would make sense that it would boot after with the radeon in the other slot
friend: yes.
this makes more sense to me on why the computer would not boot up with both video cards at the time. Any thoughts on this?
i also checked with him, and my mobo can run more than 2 gpu's. which is good, and using the program you suggested there should be no reason to do a dos flash. right? now i think i have to go home and give it a try... hopefully forcing the other video card to be primary will help the motherboard boot up with the radeon hooked up as well. and! i don't have to mess with a dos flash, i can use the program that is linked up there. I hope that is the case, cuz flashing a card from dos makes me uneasy and i feel like i will end up flashing both cards, and that would be worse.
those really suck but you can do basic stuff like flashing your broken graphics card
So i had an extra video card, and i had to boot the dos prompt using a flash drive with the atiwinflash and the files in there. I had to do 2 flashes for each core, so looking at the bios one is for the master, and the other one is for the slave. Really simple after you get pass that hurdle of knowing that there is 2 and getting into the command prompt with a usb. So yea... anywhere i should put up the .rar file? dropbox? let me know! and thanks! i am once again a happy polycounter!
EDIT:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/152 <---- things to remember and what to type to flash your video card. Pretty much what i followed.
amidda.com/downloadsdirectory/flashvideocardstuff.rar <--- .rar of all of the files i used, from the tools to format your USB, to both .bin files you use to flash the cores of the video card.
Should i put the other websites i used? everything is pretty much in there. Hope this help anyone that happens to do this to their video card. Any trouble, PM or something.